Griffith's second great epic interweaves four tales of intolerance
down the ages: the life of Christ, the fall of Babylon, the massacre of St
Bartholemew's Eve and a modern tale of wronged innocence. It's a film of
unmatched scale and extraordinary power: the historical sequences
unfold on sets of staggering grandeur (the walls of Babylon were wide
enough to carry a chariot), and the choreography of the crowd scenes
remains astonishing. But finally, it's a triumph of editing, and the
frenzied intercutting was the root influence on Soviet masters such as
Eisenstein and Kuleshov. A work of stunning cinematic sophistication
which quite transcends the minor limitations of Griffith's Victorian
moralising and sentimentality.
